


Five Stages of Grief

by skydivingwithoutaparachute



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Acceptance, Anger, Angst, Bargain, Death, Denial, Depression, Five Stages of Grief, Hurt, Hurt/Non-comfort, John Watson is hurt, Johnlock - Freeform, Mentions of Suicide, Self-Harm, Suicide, The Reichenbach Fall, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-09 21:50:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20516984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skydivingwithoutaparachute/pseuds/skydivingwithoutaparachute
Summary: Sherlock Holmes jumps off the roof of St. Bart's Hospital and leaves behind him a broken John Watson. John goes through stages of grief in a desperate attempt to cope and move on.MATURE due to graphic suicide, self-harm, depression, gun pointing and threatening.





	1. Stage One: Denial

**Author's Note:**

> I’m starting a five-chapter Johnlock series inspired by the episode “The Reichenbach Fall”, the five stages of grief, and foremost [this post](https://pics.me.me/deduction019-gallifreyan-consulting-detective-magentablimp-let-him-have-the-coat-officer-but-25274189.png). A song called [Angels Are Calling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VbIGo4ay5M) will act as a soundtrack for this series. As you may have already guessed, this is not going to be a happy sunshine and unicorns series. I expect the chapters to be quite short, sorry about that.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS APPLY, such as suicide, self-harm, depression, gun pointing and threatening.

**“Some things here are so hard to understand  
I thank you for your love and take your hand”**

He couldn’t believe it. He could not believe it. It had not happened, it was just a very vivid nightmare, and he would snap out of it any moment now. It was not real. His best friend had not just jumped off the roof of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. He had not been freefalling for what would have felt like an eternity, he had not seen the pavement closening, his skull had not cracked due to the sheer force of hitting the concrete; He was not dead. He had not been picked up by nurses on a strecher and wheeled into the emergency room to be declared dead only two minutes later.

John sat down on the edge of the sidewalk, as rain began falling. His head was spinning and everything seemed unreal, he couldn’t focus on a single thing. So many thoughts were speeding through his brain. It must have been what Sherlock felt like inside his head before he learned to control is gifts of thought. How he must have been feeling when he first started using drugs, and how he felt every time he needed to take them. Sherlock had once told him, that his mind was like an engine racing out of control, a rocket tearing itself to pieces. For once John understood, what his detective friend had meant. He felt like he was going to lose it, his head spinning faster than he could grasp, thoughts and feeling firing inside his head like it was Afghanistan. It only made it harder for John to understand, what had happened.

_“He’s my friend! Let me through, he’s my friend! Sherlock! I’m a doctor, let me through!” He had struggled to even get to Sherlock, a small crowd of people trying to keep him away. John had fallen to his knees on the pavement, his hands all over Sherlock’s warm body. He had grabbed one of the detective’s hands and searched his wrist for a pulse. None found. Tugging at his coat collar, John had tried to read Sherlock’s pulse on his long, pale neck. None found. Nurses and doctors had come running from inside the hospital with a strecher, picked the tall detective on it, and wheeled him in with urgency._

Salty tears blended with the cold, heavy rain. The police had been called to investigate the scene, and they had been in quite the hurry, since it had already been drizzling, when they had arrived. Detective inspector Lestrade and his officers had been at the roof and down on the sidewalk, where Sherlock’s body had… hit. Briefly John even thought about poor Molly Hooper, who would have to work with Sherlock’s body in her working space. Maybe she had even been there, when he had been brought in… Whatever the case, John was convinced Molly wouldn’t be able to perform the autopsy. Maybe she would have it in her to pay her respects to the corpse, tell Sherlock everything she hadn’t had the opportunity or courage to tell. That was about all John could think about Molly’s grief, before he sunk back into his own thoughts.

The doctor snapped out of his thoughts, when something was laid on his soaked shoulders. He lifted his gaze and expected to see a blanket, the kind Sherlock had been forced to wear after a suspect in serial poisonings had been shot dead right in front of him, but instead he saw a coat. Sherlock’s coat. It had gone cold, but John grabbed it and wrapped it so tightly around him, that a more fragile piece of clothing would have torn. The reality hit him like a ton of bricks. Sherlock was dead.


	2. Stage Two: Anger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John Watson's denial subsides. Anger is next.

**“Angels are calling, hard rain is falling  
Covering my tears and my pain”**

The past week had been rough, to say the least. There was a heavy silence surrounding everyone close to Sherlock Holmes. Mycroft buried himself in his work, not expressing the emotions everyone still knew was there. The Holmes parents stayed indoors, mourning together, not welcoming guests or even answering the telephone to receive condolences. Even Donovan and Anderson were affected at work, mostly due to Detective Inspector Lestrade being absolutely shattered. Heaven knew he tried to keep himself and his division together, but beneath a cracking surface, he was crumbling into tiny pieces. He had cared a hell of a lot more, than he thought he had let on. He allowed his team to call Sherlock a freak. He should have given Sherlock more support. Now it was too late to tell Sherlock that he was like a little brother or a protégé to him. Molly Hooper was still having sudden outbursts of tears while working at the morgue. A few days later she would resign, not being able to work the space without seeing Sherlock’s slender form underneath a sheet, laying on the slab.

And then there was John Watson. A dark, dangerous John Watson. Sally Donovan had warned Watson, that one day they would be standing around a corpse, and Sherlock would be the one to have put it there. That Watson was to watch his back with this psychopath. A _sociopath_, the consulting detective would later correct. What everyone seems to fail to realize, was that John was a soldier. There was no such thing as an ex-soldier, John was and would always be a soldier. Nerves of steel, a master shooter, and a strong moral compass; Not unable to crumble under the highest of pressure, though. He had been trained to kill. A weapon in his hand was just an extended part of his body, he was one with his weapons. John was also a doctor; A patient, warm-hearted, caring doctor; A healer. Safe to say, it took a lot to shut off the healer, and bring out the cold-blooded soldier. After being discharged from the army, John had found only one thing that was capable of doing that, and it was Sherlock Holmes. To be more spesific, Sherlock Holmes in danger. There was nothing on Earth that could stop John from protecting Sherlock.

Unbeknownst to John, Sherlock had seen him as a guardian angel with a gun. Deep in Sherlock’s mind palace there had been a room exclusively for all the times he had been in distress, and John had burst through a door gun-first to rescue him and save the day. The man was a revelation himself; Tall and slender, dark curls of an angel cast out of heaven, and cheekbones to die for underneath a pale, marble-like skin, and yet, he saw John with a gun as an absolutely divine sight. Oh, there were so many things John had never gotten around to tell Sherlock, but even more things Sherlock never got to tell John.

A knock on the door of 221B snapped John out of his thoughts. In the blink of an eye, John got out of his chair, grabbed his Sig Sauer and pointed it with a straight arm square between the eyes of an unassuming Lestrade. “Jesus christ, John! It’s me, Greg!” “I can see that”, John answered bitterly, still not lowering his weapon, despite the Detective Inspector asking him to. Repeatedly. Had the soldier seen anything but red, he would have noticed how Lestrade was finally realizing that Sherlock had never been the dangerous one. John Watson was. There was a shade of fear in Lestrade’s voice, when he raised his hands in surrender and asked John again. “If you would just have done your bloody job, Sherlock would still be alive”, John growled like an animal, the voice rumbling deep down from inside him. He was angry, and Lestrade was now sure, he wouldn’t be leaving the apartment alive. He tried lowering his other hand slowly, but John shot him a warning glance. “Don’t even think about drawing your piece on me. You’ll be dead before ever reaching it, and you know it.”

“I didn’t kill Sherlock, John. I didn’t save him either, but I did not kill Sherlock”, Lestrade broke the silence. He took a step closer to John, trying to get through the skin of the soldier to the civilian doctor he was friends with. “Stay the _hell_ back!” Lestrade stopped dead in his tracks. John was definitely not messing around, he was aware of his actions and clearly had some strong emotions for Lestrade. “John… John, please, put down the gun. You won’t shoot me.” “Why the hell would I not shoot you?” “Because I’m not the enemy!” It was not Lestrade’s turn to snap. Quite the bold move for someone, who has a gun aimed at their head. The soldier was cracking, feeling hot tears fill him dead eyes, but his hand never even flinched. A thought occurred Lestrade, but he dismissed it immediately. He knew better than trying to relieve a soldier of his gun. “John, nothing you do can bring Sherlock back. Want to shoot me? Go ahead, John, see if it brings Sherlock back.”

After what seemed to be an eternity, John lowered his weapon-holding arm until it hung by his side, still staring Lestrade in the eye. Detective Inspector let out a relieved sigh and lowered his own arms, silently thanking God for sparing his life. John sacked back down in his chair, hiding his face into his hands, one of them still holding the Sig. Lestrade approched him, still a bit cautious, and gently pried the gun out of John’s hand. The man was too emotional to even notice it. “I can’t believe his gone”, John said quietly, startled by the hand on his shoulder blade, massaging warmly. “I know, John. I miss him too.”

John stayed at 221B, his fortress of solitude. Even Mrs. Hudson didn’t dare to attempt communication with him. She did however smuggle some food into the fridge when she was sure John had blacked out after some heavy drinking or he was out to get some more liquor. It was the only thing he went out for. He drank with a gun in his hand, he slept with it tucked under his pillow, he left it on the sink those few times he showered. Lestrade hadn’t been by since the last time, and Mary seemed to had forgotten she was married. Truth was, that as much as Mary loved John, she didn’t want to sleep in the same bed as the Sig. She didn’t want to walk into the bedroom after having a glass of water in the middle of the night, only to come back and have the gun aimed at her head. She had decided to give John time to get over his anger. She knew what was coming next, and she would be there for him, when it happened.


End file.
